Sunday, July 31, 2005

This is my farewell toast to my friend Bob Congdon who recently resigned from IBM and is heading to Seattle to work of Microsoft.

I once heard someone describe Bob as ‘scary smart’ and that’s true, Bob is way smarter than the average person. But, the world is full of smart people and that’s not what really differentiates Bob. What makes Bob better than all the rest is he makes everyone he works with better. Bob never uses his intellect to hammer down co-workers or put himself on a pedestal; quite the opposite. Bob listens to ideas from the team and steers team discussions like a conductor steers an orchestra. The end result is a team that produces better product and everyone feels like a contributor.

I’ve also heard Bob described as a ‘man of few words and of many’. Bob can cut to the core of a topic like a precision drill or meander around a topic like a lazy river. This later tendency has proven most amusing over the years. I’ve worked on and off with Bob for around 5 years and over that time we built up a friendship around some core shared interests. We share a love of programming languages, development methodologies, movies and of course blogging. I cannot count the number of lunch table conversations we’ve had on those topics where Bob has barely let me get a word in edge wise.

In summation, let me state this emphatically, If I had to pick the best engineer I’ve ever worked with, it would be Bob. He’s brilliant, a great co-worker and just a nice guy. Good luck Bob,keep in touch and keep on blogging.

Does anyone else find it ironic that the day after James Doohan, Scotty from Star Trek, passed away there's a story of some scientists wanting to fly whales from California to the UK in order to reestablish Grey whales in that region. Transparent aluminium aside, that sounds like a daunting task.

Do you enjoy adventure stories? If so you should read Raising the Dead over on Outside online. While the stories tag line is a bit much:

At the bottom of the biggest underwater cave in the world, diving deeper than almost anyone had ever gone, Dave Shaw found the body of a young man who had disappeared ten years earlier. What happened after Shaw promised to go back is nearly unbelievable ?unless you believe in ghosts.

It's a great tale. What drives people to do things like this is beyond me, but it makes for entertaining, albeit nerve wracking, reading.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

I've been hacking around in Ruby again and I've started to use a feature I've ignored in the past, the format operator. It's just syntax suger for doing a C style sprintf but I think its makes the code a bit more readable.

I had to use the web for help with X words and the best source I found was this page on phrontistery.info. If you like unusual words it's a fun site to browse.

Another interesting thing I ran into during some Abecedarium related web searching was the Abecedarium Nordmannicum rune poems, a set of Norse abecadruim using the younger futhark script. I can't say I've spent a lot of time looking at the pages but there's a whole world of rune study out there that find this stuff fascinating.

Friday, July 08, 2005

I've never been much phased by so called Frankenstein food, you know, the ones enhanced by genetic engineering. But this new engineered meat replacement just sounds disgusting. Actually the whole thing reminds me of this scene from The Restaurant At The End of The Universe.

One question I have is since it doesn't come from a living animal could a vegetarian eat it?

Here's a great column from Jeff Angus on Leadership. Granted, I'm pointing it out because it echoes my own sentiments on the subject and supports my previous complaints about IBM. The following are his words not mine:

Because all human organizations tend to be self-amplifying (see Angus' Eighth Law), accountability-sloughers will tend to get chosen for advancement by accountability- sloughing decision-makers and therefore get concentrated at the top.

My one gripe with the article is that is confuses the concepts of leadership and charisma. Angus repeatedly says leadership is ephemeral. I would say charisma is ephemeral but leadership is pretty concrete. Leadership is the act of convincing people to willingly do what you want rather than what they want. Being charismatic is certainly one way of being a good leader, but others such as being a good manager (Angus's point), and developing trust and respect are just as, if not more, successful and a lot more practical.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

If you're being bothered by the new crop of pop-behind and pop-out adds that are appearing on various web sites you may be interested in the Firefox NoScript extension. NoScript works much like Firefox's built in popup blocker, but instead of blocking just popup windows it blocks the execution of JavaScript on a domain by domain basis. You can enable JavaScript for those sites you trust and leave it disabled for those you are unsure of. Just like with the popup blocker you get visible notification of scripts being blocked. Notification take the form of a header bar that you can click on to allow script permanently for that domain or as a one time thing. It works well.

Friday, July 01, 2005

My friend and fellow blogger Don was guest DJ on WBCN in Boston, Wednesday afternoon. Unfortunately I didn't listen - silly work - so I cannot comment directly but I wanted to congratulate him anyway. Everyone I've talked to who did listen said he was very funny and very Don. Good job man.

Here's a link to some great holiday weekend reporting from Liz Brunner of NewsCenter 5. Minimize BBQ Cancer Risks This Holiday. Yeah, I'm sure burnt meat is the primary health risk most of us face over the next few days. Personally, I'd place it way south of these other risks I also plan to ignore: holiday traffic, indulgence of alcohol, fireworks and hypothermia or shark attack while swimming. Note to self: If Liz Brunner ever invites me to a party, don't go.